While inspecting MoP and recent posts of blues, namely Zarhym, it's becoming more and more apparent that MoP is looking to shatter the status quo with WoW. Blizzard is moving away from listening to the populist whining that can apparently never be quelled. This is reinforced by the fact that they are releasing an expansion with humanoid Pandas as a primary archetype.
They knew that this wouldn't be popular, not even in China, as Pandas are somewhat revered there, but they are going for it anyway. With Zarhym's recent language of "Plea accepted..." in an earlier post, I'm beginning to think that Blizzard is wrangling WoW around the horns and making a come back with quality gameplay.
MoP seems to be catering more towards gameplay than appealing to the populist bases with some pop-cultured oriented lore. With the revamp of the talent system (which, in my humble opinion, is sheer brilliance) and the addition of 3 new and INNOVATIVE battlegrounds, two of which are based off of other games (DotA and TF2), I believe MoP will be a turn-around.
Blizzard = innovation. I wouldn't put it past them.
Just my $0.02.